In the heat of summer, heat waves roll in and out, and delicate babies are especially susceptible to heat stroke, which can be caused by the heat and can damage your baby’s health. Although many families now have air conditioning, but the baby can not always hide in the air-conditioned room. A moderate amount of outdoor activity allows babies to breathe fresh air and is also good for growth and less prone to air conditioning disease. So, how can you ensure that your baby has moderate outdoor activities without getting heatstroke?
Why babies are prone to heatstroke
Babies’ thermoregulatory centers are not yet mature and have poor adaptability to temperature changes in their surroundings. If they are exposed to sunlight for a longer period of time, their body temperature can rise quickly, leading to heat stroke.
Usually, sweat gland secretion increases significantly when it is hot, and sweat can take away some of the heat when it evaporates on the skin surface, but babies have underdeveloped sweat glands, and the number of sweat glands is small, and water storage in the body is limited, so this way of heat dissipation does not work well.
The human lungs can expel heat out of the body when exhaling. If the ambient temperature is too high and the air inhaled is hot, it will make the body temperature rise instead. The baby’s metabolism is already fast and produces a lot of heat, so if the ambient temperature exceeds the body temperature, it will instead prompt the body temperature to go up.
In hot weather, when the capillaries expand, the blood containing higher heat can flow to the surface of the body, so that heat can be distributed outward. The baby’s body surface area is relatively large, the skin epidermis is thin, permeable, vascular distribution is abundant, if the external temperature is too high, it can not dissipate heat, but absorb heat.
Several symptoms of heatstroke in babies
Parents should be alert when they encounter a baby with the following performance.
1, body temperature of 39 ℃ ~ 40 ℃, cold sweat, wet and cold skin.
2, the skin is red, hot, and dry without sweat.
3.Baby is irritable and cries noisily, breathing and pulse speed up, then will look tired and even have cramps or coma.
4. Older children may experience nausea, dizziness, disorientation, drowsiness and unresponsiveness to the outside world.
Emergency treatment for heat stroke
Keep the baby’s airway open. If there is vomiting, clean up the filth in time.
Move the baby to a cool place, take off clothes, and use an electric fan or air conditioner to lower the ambient temperature. Wipe the whole body with cold wet towel. Do not use ice water or ice to make the body temperature drop drastically, otherwise it will make the skin blood vessels extremely constricted and the skin blood flow significantly reduced and cannot continue to expel heat.
Give your baby some non-caffeinated drinks every 10 to 15 minutes, but do not give them to a vomiting baby as this may cause gastrointestinal discomfort and aggravate the vomiting, and you should go to the hospital for rehydration as soon as possible.
Babies with dizziness and headache can apply some cooling oil on the Hall of Indigo point (between the two eyebrows) and the solar plexus, which has the effect of refreshing the brain.
Take Huo Xiang Zheng Qi Liquid, half a stick each time, twice a day, to dissipate heat and relieve heatstroke. Take 5 grams of Liuyi San with water each time, it can also cure summer heatstroke.
Several measures to prevent heatstroke
Parents always think that small babies have poor resistance and need to wear more clothes to avoid catching a cold. In fact, how much an adult wears, how much a baby should wear, as long as the child’s hands and feet are not particularly cold, it shows that the dress is appropriate. Especially in the hot summer, the baby’s clothing should be loose, soft, thin cotton clothing is good, so that sweat can be easily absorbed and feel cool body.
Don’t wait until you are thirsty to drink water. When your baby is active, encourage him to drink more water. Breastfed babies can drink no extra water or little water if they have sufficient breast milk and the baby does not sweat much. Formula-fed babies have three times the kidney load of breastfed babies and need to be given more water to excrete waste. In between feedings, the mother needs to feed her baby 30 to 50 ml of warm boiled water. For older babies, it is best to give some water every 30 minutes. Do not replace plain water with drinks.
Travel to avoid the hot sun. If parents take their babies out, it is best to arrange for them to go out in the morning or at dusk. Wear a sun hat and some sunscreen on exposed areas when you go out.
Get enough sleep. Open the windows indoors and use fans or air conditioners to keep the room temperature appropriate.
In summer, you can drink some mung bean and lily soup, you can also use 60 grams of reed root and water decoction to drink as tea, it has the effect of clearing heat and eliminating summer heat.